This book, written by a father of school-aged children, challenges the idea that school reform must be based on raising test scores. Rather, it asserts that school reform should start by deciding what kind of students it wants to produce and then designing schools that will allow students to develop accordingly. The book advocates a child-centered…

DAY ONE is an education program offered to parents of newborn children to help them become the child's first educator. The DAY ONE Research Project was a collaborative effort of the West Virginia Task Force on Children, Youth, and Families and the Charleston (West Virginia) Area Medical Center Women and Children's Hospital to measure the…

Emotional Release Counselling (ERC) is based on the simple premise that to feel emotions and energy and to let them be expressed keeps us mentally healthy. ERC works to help a child be deeply connected to the sensation within the body, to develop self-awareness. The book explains the concept of emotional release counseling and provides specific…

The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 (PL 96-272) provided major federal initiatives to reform the state child welfare system. The goals of the act were to keep families together by providing them with services and to find permanent adoptive homes for children who could not be reunited with their parents. This report examines the…

This series of 10 short publications addresses topics relevant to early childhood development. Topics discussed include: (1) the ethnic traditions and unique characteristics of every child; (2) suggestions to working parents for coping with their family obligations; (3) suggestions for activities parents can engage in with their young children;…

The National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) has been working with federal and state agencies to facilitate and enhance the collection and use of data on educational outcomes for students with disabilities. The purpose of this document is to present a model of: (1) early childhood outcomes at age 3, where outcomes are defined as the results…

As part of its response to the current emphasis on educational reform and accountability, the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) has been working with federal and state agencies to facilitate and enhance the collection and use of data on educational outcomes for students with disabilities. In doing so, it has taken an inclusive…

This book contains 14 research papers and reviews on the development of ethnic identity in childhood and adolescence and the transmission of ethnic identity within families and across family generations. The research focuses on Hispanic-Americans, particularly Mexican-Americans; some studies include Blacks, American Indians, Asian-Americans, and…

This paper discusses the impact of World War II on the lives of U.S. home-front children--that is, the boys and girls born between 1933 and 1945 who were children during the war and were still preadolescents when the war ended. The paper proceeds by discussing, first, the topical approach to the subject used in this essay; second, the ways in…

This paper explored the behavior of children of the U.S. homefront during World War II, and found that, in general, girls and boys adopted the sex-typed behavior that their parents, teachers, and peers believed was appropriate to their gender and age. Thus, girls played the roles of mother, teacher, and nurse, while boys played the roles of…

By describing the characteristics of the educational and developmental belief systems of low-income African-American parents of kindergarten children, this study extended previous research on parents' beliefs about early education and development to more ethnically and socioeconomically diverse subject groups. A sample of 115 African-American…

One of the most robust approaches to researching parents' influence on children's social competence is the study of what has been called "parenting style." Parenting style captures two important elements of parenting: parental responsiveness and parental demandingness. Categorizing parents according to whether they are high or low on…

When teachers lay the weight of the world's ecological problems on elementary students before they have fostered the kind of connectedness that underlies appropriate environmental education, they create a condition of fear and disempowerment called "ecophobia." The paper suggests that teachers must lead with emotional connectedness…

The content and materials of cultural instruction in elementary school second language courses are discussed. First, the availability of such materials is examined, and a model for deciding what to teach is presented. Four factors are included in this model: students' first language proficiency and the transfer of skills to the second language;…

This publication explores the need for child care, particularly for low income families, and the social importance of high quality child care. These factors are the impetus for the Campaign for Child Care NOW! organized by the Children's Defense Fund. This advocacy program is urging Congress to approve legislation that will guarantee funds to help…